Long time since last post; the main news of the past fortnight is that Andy has completed a successful Bob Graham, despite going through 'a bad patch' for most of the last 7 hours. His report, which is much better in his own words, is here: http://tickinghills.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/report-of-bob-graham-round.html
For my own benefit rather than for anyone else's, here's my training for the past two-ish weeks:
Thursday 22 March: Hidden Valley at Hamsterley, approximately 9 miles overall, with 4 reps up the long grassy hill. 2:43, 2:40, 2:35, 2:28. I think the first one was a bit cautious, but on the last one I wanted to beat 2:30 so Andy paced me on the way up, to good effect. Every time I caught him he increased the pace, which I realise was for my benefit rather than to annoy me. It worked a treat.
Friday 23 March: Rest
Saturday 24 March: An hour's swim in the morning, including 10 x 100m in 1:31, 1:31, 1:33, 1:33, 1:32, 1:30, 1:32, 1:31, 1:30 and 1:28. Quite pleased. Went up to my mum's in the afternoon then 11.7 miles of running from Ingram in the Cheviots. Beautiful beautiful day - warm and sunny and definitely shorts and t-shirt weather. I did the Brough Law fell race route twice, once as a warm up, then 3 miles high intensity, finishing up a brutish hill, then 3 miles jog back to the car to warm down.
Sunday 25 March: 75 miles of cycling from my mum's in Longframlington with David. Longframlington - Netherwitton - Elsdon - Alwinton - 25 miles on what the map describes as a dead-end road* to the Roman camps after Barrowburn - Alwinton - Netherton - Rothbury - Longframlington. Another brilliant day. We took it steady and stopped every 20ish miles for some food, but it was just brilliant to be out in such good weather.
* it turns out that when they're not shooting in the firing range, you can follow the road - albeit up a very steep hill - to Byrness and come out on the A68. One for the future.
Monday 26 March: 60 minutes of swimming. Steadyish.
Tuesday 27 March: hill reps up Roseberry Topping, plus one extra on the hill next to it. This was fairly ridiculous: I went straight from work, in broad daylight in glorious weather. I got out of the car and started my jog on the track that leads to the base of the hill. Unfortunately I got sidetracked by a fat man with no top on, getting quite angry that just because it was sunny he thought it was acceptable to bare his repugnant torso, and then, because I wasn't watching where I was going, I fell face first, like a primary school child, and massively scuffed my left knee and right arm. The offending man came over to ask if I was okay, so I managed to be polite and assure him that I was, thinking (but thoughtfully not saying) that if he'd only been wearing a t-shirt none of this sorry business would have happened, then jogged on for my warm up and hill reps. It was only later I realised I'd done a proper scuff and there was blood down my leg. It's still sore now, a week later. Farcical. Anyway, I did one run from the car park to the top of Roseberry Topping, which took 11 minutes 26, which wasn't quite as quick as I'd hoped, then 3 from the saddle up the grass, then one up the adjoining hill, just for fun.
Wednesday 28 March: Should have been 90 minutes of swimming but I appeared to have hurt my arm in my primary school fall, so got out after 70, having not acquitted myself very well. I couldn't do breaststroke because I couldn't bend my left knee properly, then couldn't do crawl because of my arm. I did kick for a while then got out.
Thursday 29 March: Brilliant morning run. I was on a course in the afternoon so went up to Hamsterley in the morning - more amazing weather - did a 4.5 mile warm up, then 4 x 0.95 mile loops in 5:46, 5:42, 5:43, 5:42. Hard work and not quite as fast as last time. Bit of a warm down made it 10 miles overall.
Friday 30 March: Rest. Off to Keswick to prepare for Andy's BG.
Saturday 31 March: The day of the BG attempt! Set off at 6am and I ran leg 1, coming in at about 9:33ish I think, 3 good hills, about 1800m of ascent.
Sunday 1 April: This doesn't really count but at about 4:25am I set off with Andy down the road stretch from Newlands to Keswick. It wasn't a run as such; more of a shuffle, but we arrived at Keswick at 5:36am.
Monday 2 April: An hour's swim, some reps, but mostly at 70ish% due to slightly fatigued post-BG pacing legs.
Et voila. Now we're on holiday so theoretically I should be making the most of the long days and lovely weather... but it's now snowing. Heading up to Crook track for some track training then a swim, which I admit holds little appeal given the sight of horizontal snow out of the window, but then again, it's not being fit that's hard, it's being hard that's hard...
